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Research Collection School of Social Sciences

2017

Articles 1 - 19 of 19

Full-Text Articles in Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration

Crowdsourcing: A New Tool For Policy-Making?, Araz Taeihagh Nov 2017

Crowdsourcing: A New Tool For Policy-Making?, Araz Taeihagh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Crowdsourcing is rapidly evolving and applied in situations where ideas, labour, opinion or expertise of large groups of people is used. Crowdsourcing is now used in various policy-making initiatives; however, this use has usually focused on open collaboration platforms and specific stages of the policy process, such as agenda-setting and policy evaluations. Other forms of crowdsourcing have been neglected in policy-making, with a few exceptions. This article examines crowdsourcing as a tool for policy-making and explores the nuances of the technology and its use and implications for different stages of the policy process. The article addresses questions surrounding the role …

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Community Engagement As A Form Of Participatory Governance, Ijlal Naqvi Oct 2017

Community Engagement As A Form Of Participatory Governance, Ijlal Naqvi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Singapore government increasingly conducts a wide-rangingvariety of community engagement, which involve some degree ofpublic participation in government decision-making. These range fromOur Singapore Conversation, a wide-ranging discussion of whatSingaporeans want for their future, to the Colour Your Busescampaign in which citizens could vote on whether public buses shouldbe red or green. While these engagement processes typically informand consult, or occasionally involve deliberation and co-creation, theyrarely — if ever — empower citizens to make consequential decisionsin the manner of Archon Fung and Erik Olin Wright’s concept ofEmpowered Participatory Governance (2003).

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Instrument Constituencies And Public Policy-Making: An Introduction, Daniel Beland, Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee Sep 2017

Instrument Constituencies And Public Policy-Making: An Introduction, Daniel Beland, Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

For many years, policy-making has been envisioned as a process in which subsets of policy actors engage in specific types of interactions involved in the definition of policy problems, the articulation of solutions and their matching or enactment. This activity involves the definition of policy goals (both broad and specific), the creation or identification of the means and mechanisms that need to be implemented to realize these goals, and the set of bureaucratic, partisan, electoral and other political struggles involved in their acceptance and transformation into action. While past research on policy subsystems has often assumed or implied that these …

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Instrument Constituencies And Public Policy-Making: An Introduction, Daniel Beland, Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee Sep 2017

Instrument Constituencies And Public Policy-Making: An Introduction, Daniel Beland, Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

For many years, policy-making has been envisioned as a process in which subsets of policy actors engage in specific types of interactions involved in the definition of policy problems, the articulation of solutions and their matching or enactment. This activity involves the definition of policy goals (both broad and specific), the creation or identification of the means and mechanisms that need to be implemented to realize these goals, and the set of bureaucratic, partisan, electoral and other political struggles involved in their acceptance and transformation into action. While past research on policy subsystems has often assumed or implied that these …

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Examination Of Crowdsourcing As A Tool For Policy Making, Araz Taeihagh Jun 2017

Examination Of Crowdsourcing As A Tool For Policy Making, Araz Taeihagh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Crowdsourcing is rapidly evolving and applied in situations where ideas, labour, opinion or expertise of large groups of people are used. Crowdsourcing is now used in various policy making initiatives; however, this use has usually been focused on open collaboration platforms and specific stages of the policy process such as agenda- setting and policy evaluations. Moreover, other forms of crowdsourcing have been neglected in policy making with a few exceptions. This article examines crowdsourcing as a tool for policy making and explores the nuances of the technology and its use and implications for different stages of the policy process. The …

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Crowdsourcing, Sharing Economy And Development, Araz Taeihagh Jun 2017

Crowdsourcing, Sharing Economy And Development, Araz Taeihagh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

What are the similarities and differences betweencrowdsourcing and sharing economy? What factors influence their use indeveloping countries? In light of recent developments in the use of IT-mediatedtechnologies, such as crowdsourcing and the sharing economy, this manuscriptexamines their similarities and differences, and the challenges regarding theireffective use in developing countries. We first examine each individually andhighlight different forms of each IT-mediated technology. Given that crowdsourcingand sharing economy share aspects such as the use of IT, a reliance on crowds,monetary exchange, and the use of reputation systems, we systematically comparethe similarities and differences of different types of crowdsourcing with the sharingeconomy, thus …

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Preparing For Socio-Technical Transitions: Opportunities And Challenges For Policy Design, Sreeja Nair, Araz Taeihagh Jun 2017

Preparing For Socio-Technical Transitions: Opportunities And Challenges For Policy Design, Sreeja Nair, Araz Taeihagh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Effective policy mixes are expected to accommodate uncertainties in the future policy context by being flexible and adapt over time in expectation of a range of anticipated and unanticipated conditions. In response to shifts in the future policy context, while policy changes can manifest as increments to status quo over time, policymakers may also need to face the possibility of making major policy shifts to enable the transition into more appropriate policy regimes. In the context of socio-technical transitions, the switch to new policy alternatives can be facilitated by incorporating new policy actions into the suite of current policy strategies …

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Sector-Specific Development And Policy Vulnerability In The Philippines, Jacob I. Ricks May 2017

Sector-Specific Development And Policy Vulnerability In The Philippines, Jacob I. Ricks

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Why does a state build institutional capacity in certain sectors rather than others? Despite having gained leverage explaining the emergence of institutions in the developmental states of East Asia, we have comparatively weak accounts for sub‐national variation in institutional strength, a much more common phenomenon. Investigating the surprising achievements of the Philippines’ National Irrigation Administration, this article advances a theory of sectoral success in the face of a generally poor developmental record. The author demonstrates that executives will only construct institutional capacity when facing strong political pressure combined with resource scarcity. Such vulnerability permits politicians to exercise discretion in choosing …

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Policy Learning And Policy Networks In Theory And Practice: The Role Of Policy Brokers In The Indonesian Biodiesel Policy Network, Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee, Joop Koppenjan May 2017

Policy Learning And Policy Networks In Theory And Practice: The Role Of Policy Brokers In The Indonesian Biodiesel Policy Network, Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee, Joop Koppenjan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper examines how learning has been treated, generally, in policy network theories and what questions have been posed, and answered, about this phenomenon to date. We examine to what extent network characteristics and especially the presence of various types of brokers impede or facilitate policy learning. Next, a case study of the policy network surrounding the sustainability of palm oil biodiesel in Indonesia over the past two decades is presented using social network analysis. This case study focuses on sustainability-oriented policy learning in the Indonesian biodiesel governance network and illustrates how network features and especially forms of brokerage influence …

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Policy Design: From Tools To Patches, Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee Mar 2017

Policy Design: From Tools To Patches, Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Policy design involves the purposive attempt by governments to link pol-icy instruments or tools to the goals they would like to realize. The studyof policy design focuses on these tools, their advantages and disadvan-tages and better understanding the processes around their selectio n anddeployment in order to improve policy-making efforts and outcomes.The road map for the development of this approach to the policy sciencesstretches from early works in public policy studies around the identifica-tion of policy tools and the classification of instrument types in the 1960sand early 1970s (Design 1.0), to present-day studies that strive to effec-tively formulate effective and …

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From An Emerging Market To A Multifaceted Urban Society: Urban China Studies, Shenjing He, Junxi Qian Mar 2017

From An Emerging Market To A Multifaceted Urban Society: Urban China Studies, Shenjing He, Junxi Qian

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

China is undergoing an urban revolution. In 2011 more than half of the total population resided in cities and towns for the first time in history. Over the last two decades urban China scholars have actively engaged in dialogues with urbanists from different disciplines and different urban contexts. In consequence, urban China studies have embarked on a trail of rapid diversification and proliferation, moving beyond the topics of urbanisation and urban expansion to address a variety of issues echoing the latest developments in the Chinese city. Overall, urban China studies are witnessing a transition from a focus on economic development …

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Mobile Cities, Modelling Policies: Importing/Exporting The Singapore ‘Model’ Of Development, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong Mar 2017

Mobile Cities, Modelling Policies: Importing/Exporting The Singapore ‘Model’ Of Development, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A recent focus of research has been the making, mobility and mutations of urban policy. The global circulation of urban models – or exemplars of best practices and values that are deemed to be desirable and achievable – has gained significant traction. Such models are those that are dislocated from their place of origin, and transplanted to an adopted site. This chapter draws on the case of Singapore: one of the most emblematic examples of an importable/exportable urban model – a prototype for growth-oriented urban development with its normative and technical plans for growth and management – to foreground problems …

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Governance As An Emergent Compromise: Modernization And Flexibility In The Pakistani Electrical Power Sector, Ijlal Naqvi Mar 2017

Governance As An Emergent Compromise: Modernization And Flexibility In The Pakistani Electrical Power Sector, Ijlal Naqvi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Developing countries are often characterized by a mix of bad governance and development initiatives seeking to accelerate modernization. When inevitable cracks in the modernization process appear, they create opportunities for informalities to seep in where the influence of power relations and culture can lead to new forms of predation or allow governance compromises to emerge. The article explores this at the national and local levels of the Pakistani electrical power sector, with each level conceptualized as a field of strategic action. The aim is to recognize the importance of emergent compromises for producing workable accommodations of competing interests, improving access …

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Political Dynamics In Land Commodification: Commodifying Rural Land Development Rights In Chengdu, China, Qian Forrest Zhang, Jianling Wu Jan 2017

Political Dynamics In Land Commodification: Commodifying Rural Land Development Rights In Chengdu, China, Qian Forrest Zhang, Jianling Wu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Commodification of land is at the forefront of the re-casting of rural China by the spread of capitalism. This study examines a market-based program of land development rights trading in Chengdu, China. The program was made possible by a change in the central government’s land-use regulation that shifted the policy goal from ‘no net loss’ of farmland to ‘no net gain’ of construction land. We detail how local governments at multiple levels work together to construct land development rights as a commodity and build market institutions to foster its trading, illustrating land commodification as an inherently political process. A unique …

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Introduction: Understanding Central-Local Relations In China, John A. Donaldson Jan 2017

Introduction: Understanding Central-Local Relations In China, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

How do we understand the evolution of central-local relations in China during the reform period? This book addresses this question by focusing on eight separate issues in which the central-local relationship has been especially salient – government finance, investment control, regional development, administrative zoning, implementation, culture, social welfare and international relations. Each chapter introduces a sector and the way the center and various local governments have shared or divided power over the different periods of China’s reform era. The balance of power is gauged dynamically over time to measure the extent to which one level of government dominates, influences or …

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No-Place, New Places: Death And Its Rituals In Urban Asia, Lily Kong Jan 2017

No-Place, New Places: Death And Its Rituals In Urban Asia, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In many Asian cities, particularly those that confront increasing land scarcity, the conversion from burial to cremation has been encouraged by state agencies in the last several decades. From Hong Kong to Seoul to Singapore, planning agencies have sought to reduce the use of space for the dead, in order to release land for the use of the living. More secular guiding principles regarding efficient land use in these cities had originally come up against the symbolic values invested in burial spaces, resulting in conflicts between different value systems. In more recent years, however, the shift to cremation and columbaria …

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China's Administrative Hierarchy: The Balance Of Power And Winners And Losers Within China's Levels Of Government, John A. Donaldson Jan 2017

China's Administrative Hierarchy: The Balance Of Power And Winners And Losers Within China's Levels Of Government, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The China that Chairman Mao Zedong ruled was primarily agrarian. Mao’s party, consistent with the ideas of Lenin on which it was partially based, pursued planned industrialization by promoting state-owned manufacturing. This endeavor involved all sectors of society in the push to catch up with the West – even to the point of imploring rural residents to smelt steel in backyard furnaces. These efforts showed some success – by 1978 manufacturing’s share of GDP had risen from the 28 percent it held in 1949. Yet even after three decades, manufacturing still represented less than half of GDP, while the country’s …

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Betting On The Big: State-Brokered Land Transfers, Large-Scale Agricultural Producers, And Rural Policy Implementation, Weigang Gong, Qian Forrest Zhang Jan 2017

Betting On The Big: State-Brokered Land Transfers, Large-Scale Agricultural Producers, And Rural Policy Implementation, Weigang Gong, Qian Forrest Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

As rural governments have become hollowed out and detached from rural society, can they still effectively implement policies that lack popular support? This article examines a county in Hunan Province, where local governments had strong incentives to implement a national policy of increasing double cropping in rice farming. Small farmers rejected double cropping as unprofitable. Local governments’ limited capacity prevented them from either reshaping small farmers’ economic calculus or coercing compliance. They strategically selected a policy tool acceptable to most small farmers (paid land transfers) and gave new private large-scale producers incentives to double crop by providing subsidies and access …

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Contesting Urban Citizenship: The Urban Poor’S Strategies Of State Engagement In Chennai, India, Subadevan Mahadevan, Ijlal Naqvi Jan 2017

Contesting Urban Citizenship: The Urban Poor’S Strategies Of State Engagement In Chennai, India, Subadevan Mahadevan, Ijlal Naqvi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Existing accounts of how the urban poor in the global south engage with the state fall short on two fronts. Firstly, the literature lacks an overarching framework articulating the urban poor’s strategies for engaging the state. Secondly, these accounts typically capture singular instances of state engagement pursued by the urban poor and theorise on that basis. Using Partha Chatterjee’s distinction between civil and political society as our theoretical point of departure, we draw on ethnographic evidence from Chennai’s informal settlements to demonstrate how and when the urban poor deploy different strategies of state engagement to advance their claims to urban …

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